Indonesian cleric Bashir walks out of terrorism trial
Jakarta, January 27
Militant Indonesian cleric Abu Bakar Bashir and defence lawyers walked out of his terrorism trial today after a key witness refused to testify.
Bashir and his lawyers stormed angrily out of the court in South Jakarta
after a man called Mubarok, who is serving a life sentence for his part
in the October 2002 bombings in Bali, kept mum at the witness stand.

Indonesian cleric Abu Bakar Bashir (centre) walks with his lawyers out of his terrorism trial in Jakarta on Thursday.
— Reuters photo

Malaysia urges scholars to fight extremism
Putrajaya (Malaysia), January 27
Muslim nations and scholars must speak out against militant extremism or take some blame for the West’s misunderstanding of Islam, the Chairman of the world’s largest body of Islamic nations said today.

Now, project on river Neelum raises Pak hackles
Islamabad, January 27
The Indian move to build a water storage and power generation facility on River Neelum in Kashmir in violation of the Indus Waters Treaty will cause Pakistan a water shortage of about 8-9 per cent.
Sources told Dawn that a meeting held here on Wednesday was informed about
different aspects of the Kishanganga project.

Global warming ‘twice as bad as previously thought’
Global warming could be twice as catastrophic as previously thought, the world's biggest study of climate change shows. Researchers from some of Britain's leading universities used computer modelling to predict that under the "worst-case" scenario, London would be under water and winters banished to history as average temperatures in the UK soar up to 20°C higher than at present.

Afghan soldier kills 5 comrades, shot dead
Kabul, January 27
An Afghan national army soldier today opened fire on fellow troops, killing five of them and wounding six, before he was shot and killed by other soldiers, the US military said.

Russian forces attack rebels
Rostov-on-Don, January 27
Hundreds of Russian policemen and soldiers today stormed an apartment in a southern Russian city, ending a two-day standoff with a group of suspected Islamic extremists.

A US
soldier stands guard near an election poster patrol in Baghdad
on Thursday. Several guerrilla groups have declared war on the January 30 election, vowing to attack polling stations and kill those who vote.

A man leads his cows through snow-covered fields at a village in southwest
Kosovo on Thursday. Heavy snow and gale-force winds paralysed traffic in central Croatia on Wednesday.
— Reuters photos

Jakarta, January 27
Militant Indonesian cleric Abu Bakar Bashir and defence lawyers walked out of his terrorism trial today after a key witness refused to testify.

Bashir and his lawyers stormed angrily out of the court in South Jakarta after a man called Mubarok, who is serving a life sentence for his part in the October 2002 bombings in Bali, kept mum at the witness stand.

Bashir is on trial for inciting followers to stage the Bali bombings and a deadly attack on a Jakarta hotel. He could face the death penalty if convicted.

Prosecutors suffered setbacks in previous sessions as several convicted militants presented as witnesses denied knowledge of Bashir's links with Jemaah Islamiyah, the group blamed for Bali and a string of other deadly attacks.

Mubarok, also known as Utomo Pamungkas, gave no reason for his refusal to testify. Judges later decided to order prosecutors to read out Mubarok's police statement.

According to prosecutors, the documents recount a conversation between Bashir and Mubarok and other jailed Bali bombers in which the cleric was asked for permission to "hold an event in Bali".

Bashir allegedly replied, "It is up to all of you since you are the ones who know the situation in the field." The indictment says this was seen as the green light to plan and execute the bombings.

The 66-year-old cleric and his lawyers abandoned the trial in protest at the judges' decision.
— AFP

Putrajaya (Malaysia), January 27
Muslim nations and scholars must speak out against militant extremism or take some blame for the West’s misunderstanding of Islam, the Chairman of the world’s largest body of Islamic nations said today.

Malaysian Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, chairman of the Organisation of the Islamic Conference (OIC), said the Muslims must speak up when extremists misrepresent Islam and attempt to build religious militancy on intellectual foundations.

He said the Muslims were as much to blame as non-Muslims for misinterpretation of jehad, or holy struggle, which was often distorted as a religious justification for violence.

“If Muslims themselves can make this mistake, what more can we expect from others,” asked Mr Abdullah at an OIC summit in Putrajaya, Malaysia’s administrative capital.

The Muslim world, or ‘’ummah’’, has not been very successful in engaging the Western media, Mr Abdullah said “We have not made our presence sufficiently felt or our views sufficiently heard in the western media”.
— Reuters

Islamabad, January 27
The Indian move to build a water storage and power generation facility on River Neelum in Kashmir in violation of the Indus Waters Treaty will cause Pakistan a water shortage of about 8-9 per cent.

Sources told Dawn that a meeting held here on Wednesday was informed about different aspects of the Kishanganga project. The meeting was presided over by Secretary, Water and Power, Ashfaq Mehmood and attended by senior officials of the GHQ, Pakistan Commission for Indus Waters, the Indus River System Authority, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and irrigation departments of Sindh and Punjab.

The sources said the meeting was informed that the diversion of the Neelum through a 22-km-long tunnel could reduce water flow of the Jhelum in "Azad Kashmir" by 27 per cent, besides affecting the power generation capability of the Neelum-Jhelum project.

The sources said the Indian project could reduce Pakistan's total water availability from an estimated 154 MAF (million acre feet) to about 140 MAF per year and leave unutilised a significant portion of the Mangla dam's storage capacity.

The meeting was convened on reports that India had completed work on more than 16 km of the 22-km-long diversion tunnel. The tunnel constitutes 50 per cent of the Kishanganga project.

The sources said India had also allocated funds for the project and was in the process of floating tenders to award a contract for the main storage and power generation component.

The meeting considered various proposals to stop India from continuing with the project and decided that other proposals would be discussed in subsequent inter-ministerial meetings and briefings to the President and the Prime Minister which would be held shortly.

The meeting was also informed that the finance ministry had rejected a request from the power ministry to provide government guarantees to raise about $100 million foreign exchange component of the $1.6 billion Neelum-Jhelum hydropower project that Pakistan planned to build on the Neelum in "Azad Kashmir".

Global warming could be twice as catastrophic as previously thought, the world's biggest study of climate change shows. Researchers from some of Britain's leading universities used computer modelling to predict that under the "worst-case" scenario, London would be under water and winters banished to history as average temperatures in the UK soar up to 20°C higher than at present.

Globally, average temperatures could reach 11°C greater than today, double the rise predicted by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the international body set up to investigate global warming. Such high temperatures would melt most of the polar icecaps and mountain glaciers, raising sea levels by more than 20ft. A report this week in The Independent predicted a 2°C temperature rise would lead to irreversible changes in the climate.

The new study, in the journal Nature, was done using the spare computing time of 95,000 persons from 150 countries who downloaded from the internet the global climate model of the Met Office's Hadley Centre for Climate Prediction and Research. The programme, run as a screensaver, simulated what would happen if carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere were double those of the 18th century, before the Industrial Revolution.

Kabul, January 27
An Afghan national army soldier today opened fire on fellow troops, killing five of them and wounding six, before he was shot and killed by other soldiers, the US military said.

The motive for the shooting spree was unclear. It took place inside a coalition base in southern Helmand province early this morning.

“The soldier who initiated the shooting was returning from guard duty at the time of the incident and, currently, no information is available as to his motives,” a statement issued by the US military said.

The wounded were evacuated to the main American base in Kandahar for medical treatment.
— AP

Rostov-on-Don, January 27
Hundreds of Russian policemen and soldiers today stormed an apartment in a southern Russian city, ending a two-day standoff with a group of suspected Islamic extremists.

Black smoke billowed from the building in Nalchik, the regional capital of the province of Kabardino-Balkariya, near Chechnya, as the police and Interior Ministry troops fired automatic weapons and hurled grenades. Between three and eight gunmen, believed to be in the building, returned fire, wounding two police officers.
— AP

BRIEFLY

Shah Rukh dress gets 30,000 dirhams
DUBAI: If Shah Rukh Khan is the Badshah of Hindi filmdom, he proved it here in ample measure in absentia: the qawaali dress worn by him in ‘Main Hoon Na’ was sold at an astounding 30,000 dirhams (Rs 3.9 lakh) as part of a celebrity auction in aid of tsunami victims which fetched a total of about 2,25,000 dirhams (Rs 29.25 lakh). The auction was held on Wednesday night as part of the first-ever Global Indian Film Awards events being held here.
— UNI

Quit smoking or lose job
CHICAGO: The owner of a Michigan company who forced his employees to either quit smoking or quit their jobs said he also wants to tell fat workers to lose weight or else. A ban on tobacco use — whether at home or at the workplace — led four employees to quit their jobs last week at Okemos, Michigan-based Weyco Inc, which handles insurance claims.
— Reuters

World’s highest garden opened
BEIJING: China has opened the world’s highest botanical garden in Lijiang, a picturesque city in Yunnan province in the southwest. Xinhua news agency reported. The botanical garden was built jointly by China and Britain.
— PTI

10 die in LA train collision
Los Angeles: At least 10 persons were killed and nearly 200 injured when two Los Angeles commuter trains collided after one struck an automobile left on the tracks in what authorities called an aborted suicide attempt by a ''deranged'' man.
— Reuters